


Pygmalion

by RedAnthem



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Five just wants his mom, Food Poisoning, Non-graphic vomiting, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Number Five | The Boy-centric, The Apocalypse, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28381134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedAnthem/pseuds/RedAnthem
Summary: So, Dolores started talking back to him. Her voice was nice; softly chiding, but warm. A touch sarcastic, if mannequins could know human sarcasm. He couldn’t remember where he heard a voice like that before. Maybe mom? He missed mom. Mom always had a smile, didn’t blink, didn’t need to. Dolores never blinked either and she always smiled too. He wondered if mom would enjoy meeting Dolores. He was supposed to let his mom meet his girlfriend, right? That’s what normal sons with normal mothers do.
Relationships: Dolores & Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Grace Hargreeves & Reginald Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Reginald Hargreeves
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	Pygmalion

_Everyone carries within him an image of woman that he gets from his mother; that determines whether he will honor women in general, or despise them, or be generally indifferent to them. --Nietzsche,_ Human, All Too Human

* * *

It was after he ate that godforsaken Twinkie when Dolores actually started talking. 

_“Get up,_ silly.”

Her voice rang through the haze of his fever as he finished vomiting all over himself. It had been so long since he’d heard another person’s voice. What a fucking godsend. She’s the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. He’d be lost without her.

 _“Get up,_ silly.”

“In a second, Dolores,” he gasped through his own filth. He should’ve never eaten the thing. It was splotched with a foreboding green and it smelled funny but his stupid brain was convinced of his own righteousness that he hadn’t been fooled, that Twinkies never expired, and that the preservatives (he could almost hear dad scoff in disapproval) would save him.

He was wrong. It was rare, but yes, it happened occasionally. He wouldn’t make the mistake again, one way or another. He clenched his stomach which felt like a whale was flopping inside, like he had swallowed one. Like Jonah in reverse. He kept trying to spit it out but all he had left in his stomach was his own acid. The Hargreeves didn’t really believe in God--with the exception of Klaus, who kinda had to, it was part of his job. Five was sitting underneath the metaphorical tree looking at the world in disdain. He wanted to save it but God wouldn’t let him, so he was stuck out here in the shade.

He tried to pick up his own feet and stumbled. Dolores was propped in the wagon with the rest of his things. He’d grabbed her from the discount store as a token of good luck. All ships have a figurehead of a woman at the bow, after all, and he was a sailor of time. The U.S.S. _Dolores._ He’d started talking to ~~it~~ _her_ out of boredom and the anxiety of losing the ability of creating speech completely. He’d heard from dad and Pogo about the things astronauts need to do to keep up their muscles in space, and he figured that the principle applied to everything in life. Everything needed practice and exercise, or they’d deteriorate, and he needs to remember how to talk to people when he gets back home.

Klaus was always talking to things nobody else saw, and he was crazy. Five must be going crazy too. The idea wasn’t as scary as it should’ve been.

So, Dolores started talking back to him. Her voice was nice; softly chiding, but warm. A touch sarcastic, if mannequins could know human sarcasm. He couldn’t remember where he heard a voice like that before. Maybe mom? He missed mom. Mom always had a smile, didn’t blink, didn’t need to. Dolores never blinked either and she always smiled too. He wondered if mom would enjoy meeting Dolores. He was supposed to let his mom meet his girlfriend, right? That’s what normal sons with normal mothers do. They could talk about the things that girly-girl Allison always cared about, in those magazines with smiling, pretty girls and women on them. Like their plastic skin and hair, and how great WD-40 works on the joints. He wondered if robots could go to Heaven. 

He breathed in and exhaled ash and smoke. Did Allison and Klaus still smoke in their adulthood? Probably. They always used to hide out on his and Ben’s floor when they did it because they knew neither of them would tattle. Ben was just too nice for it, didn’t want to get on anyone’s bad side. Five just told himself that if they wanted to kill themselves they could do it, it was fine by him, as long as the smell didn’t blow in through his window.

“I think this is the big one, Dolores.” His tone was dry and his mouth was too and tasted disgusting and he had no water to rinse it out. His head hurt like God herself was squeezing it. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, dear.” He made pulling motions to her, grasping like an infant, until his fingers caught the cold hard plastic of her arm. 

He was so lonely. He wanted mom. She and Pogo made a good team, always patching him and his siblings up after missions and training sessions, no problem. He wanted her to call him “dear” and to pat his head while he napped in the infirmary, with its clean smell of antiseptic. He wanted her to make him peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches and hum little ditties to herself while he dozed off. He was sick and he was dying and he was only 13 but he had to take care of himself now, because everything in the world was gone.

He felt like a huge baby, now. A 13 year old, a whole _teenager,_ crying out for mommy. Only Diego still did that. He was the only one who still cared to give her goodnight hugs. Five didn’t even call her mom anymore; he started calling her “Grace” a year (or maybe 17?) ago, just to see how her algorithm would react (and if dad would even care). He remembered what she looked like the first time he did it: her plastic eyes scanning his face objectively, but not unkindly; perfect smile unwavering, a small beat in time, a readjustment to her programming. Her program that told her to call them “dear” and “silly.” He could practically hear her cogs whirring. _Mother his ass._ He used to make _beep-boop_ noises under his breath as a joke, just to rile Diego up, see the hurt flash in his dark eyes. 

What was so fun about that, again? He’d forgotten his own punchline.

He needed to head back to the shelter again, soon. As he stumbled on his legs and his vision blurred, he felt like a sailor again, regaining his sea-legs. _Imagine you’re a sailor. The wagon can be a ship. You’re a sailor and you’re on a long journey, returning home from a foreign war, and your wife and son and dog are waiting for you._ His voice in his head reminded him of the roleplaying games he used to play with his siblings, where they would imagine to be anyone else but themselves. It was evening already, so he looked for the stars, but he couldn’t see them. Sailors are supposed to use the stars as a guide, so no wonder he’s stranded in time. The Greek root word _-naut_ is in nautical, pertaining to seafaring, but it really means _star,_ which is why it's also in the word _astronaut._ Dad used to make things for astronauts.

He made other things, too. Like he made mom. It was never a secret to the Hargreeves children, really; dad wasn’t the type to have patience for innocent delusions.

Five tripped on a piece of rebar. Shit. He tasted dirt and his legs burned and he felt Dolores fall from his grasp. As he got up he panicked: her head was swiveled on all wrong.

Vanya once told him about her earliest memory of mom and he couldn’t look at Grace the same ever since. He wondered if it hurt, if robots felt pain. 

He wondered if dad hated their mother. He was never overly caustic or offensive to her but he was never affectionate either. Moms and dads are supposed to love each other, right? The notion didn’t register in his head until he and his siblings all snuck out to see _Spy Kids_ on the night dad was occupied at a gala. It should’ve been the most obvious thing in the world: moms and dads love each other, that’s how kids are made and born, after all. When he and his siblings played house together, back when they were little enough to think playing as a family would be fun, Luther and Allison would always insist on playing as the parents as an excuse to kiss each other on the cheek. Nothing about their family was ever normal. He never saw dad even _touch_ Grace, only making physical contact for maintenance purposes, and the thought of him touching her like how normal dads touch moms repulses him even now. Though, come to think of it, only a robot woman could ever love someone like dad. She would be programmed to love him no matter what, just like she was programmed to love all of her kids even when they called her “Grace” in that cold, commanding tone their dad used, and-- 

He is his father’s son, through-and-through, isn’t he? Dad made their perfect, Stepford mom and Five has Dolores. Ben always told him his dad-impressions were more accurate than Luther’s, anyway. And Ben was right about most things in life, irritating as it was, as it used to be. Ben probably wouldn’t have risked eating an expired Twinkie, for instance. 

Dolores’s smile was bright as ever, the paint on her teeth only slightly chipped. He carefully twisted her head back on the right way with a soft apology. He should be nicer to her. He should’ve been nicer to mom. Dolores deserves better than him, better than this. It was his own stupidity that got him in this mess in the first place, after all, his own arrogance, and now Dolores is stuck here with him. Away from all her girlfriends, just as lonely as he is. Her clothes filthy, her paint chipping away, her nice red hair gone and only half of her body left. He’d removed it because the women on the ships didn’t have legs. It made sense at the time. Now he wondered if talking mannequins could feel pain, if he had hurt her. 

“I’m sorry, Dolores.” His voice was thick from the dust and guilt sticking inside his throat.

“It’s alright, Five. It was an accident.”

“No, really. I’m sorry. For everything. I’ll be a better man for you, I promise.” It felt like the right thing to say, though a bit awkward. He didn’t really know what women would like to hear, what gestures they liked to receive as an apology. He wished he had flowers, to apologize like the guys did in the novels and movies that Allison and Klaus liked, but everything is dead and gone now. He has to be a man now, and he should’ve paid more attention back then, instead of calling romantic things stupid, like some dumb kid.

She was quiet, out of choice this time (he could tell the difference, now), and he felt lonely in the evening’s cold blue silence, the stars hiding themselves from him, like they always do.


End file.
